1.26

The cruelty even of private men has sometimes been revenged by their slaves in spite of the certainty that they will be crucified: whole kingdoms and nations when oppressed by tyrants or threatened by them, have attempted their destruction. Sometimes their own guards have risen in revolt, and have used against their master all the deceit, disloyalty, and ferocity which they have learned from him. What, indeed, can he expect from those whom he has taught to be wicked? A bad man will not long be obedient, and will not do only as much evil as he is ordered. But even if the tyrant may be cruel with safety, how miserable his kingdom must be: it must look like a city taken by storm, like some frightful scene of general panic. Everywhere sorrow, anxiety, disorder; men dread even their own pleasures; they cannot even dine with one another in safety when they have to keep watch over their tongues even when in their cups, nor can they safely attend the public shows when informers are ready to find grounds for their impeachment in their behaviour there. Although the spectacles be provided at an enormous expense, with royal magnificence and with world-famous artists, yet who cares for amusement when he is in prison? Ye gods! what a miserable life it is to slaughter and to rage, to delight in the clanking of chains, and to cut off one's countrymen's heads, to cause blood to flow freely wherever one goes, to terrify people, and make them flee away out of one's sight! It is what would happen if bears or lions were our masters, if serpents and all the most venomous creatures were given power over us. Even these animals, devoid of reason as they are, and accused by us of cruel ferocity, spare their own kind, and wild beasts themselves respect their own likeness: but the fury of tyrants does not even stop short at their own relations, and they treat friends and strangers alike, only becoming more violent the more they indulge their passions. By insensible degrees he proceeds from the slaughter of individuals to the ruin of nations, and thinks it a sign of power to set roofs on fire and to plough up the sites of ancient cities: he considers it unworthy of an emperor to order only one or two people to be put to death, and thinks that his cruelty is unduly restrained if whole troops of wretches are not sent to execution together. True happiness, on the other hand, consists in saving many men's lives, in calling them back from the very gates of death, and in being so merciful as to deserve a civic crown.12 No decoration is more worthy or more becoming to a prince's rank than that crown "for saving the lives of fellow-citizens": not trophies torn from a vanquished enemy, not chariots wet with their savage owner's blood, not spoils captured in war. This power which saves men's lives by crowds and by nations, is godlike: the power of extensive and indiscriminate massacre is the power of downfall and conflagration.

Footnotes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1931.

This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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Translator Notes

  1. 1.
    Nobilis↩
  2. 2.
    The text is corrupt. I have followed Gertz's conjectural emendation, mansuefactionis, but I believe that Lipsius is right in thinking that a great deal more than one word has been lost here.↩
  3. 3.
    Pace↩
  4. 4.
    Tutum↩
  5. 5.
    Gertz reads sexagesimum, his sixtieth year, which he calls "the not very audacious conjecture of Wesseling," and adds that he does so because of the words at the beginning of chap. xi. and the authority of Dion Cassius. The ordinary reading is quadragesimum, "his fortieth year," and this is the date to which Cinna's conspiracy is referred to by Merivale, "History of the Romans under the Empire," vol. iv. ch. 37. "A plot," he says, "was formed for his destruction, at the head of which was Cornelius Cinna, described as a son of Faustus Sulla by a daughter of the Great Pompeius." The story of Cinna's conspiracy is told by Seneca, de Clem. i. 9, and Dion iv. 14, foll. They agree in the main fact; but Seneca is our authority for the details of the interview between Augustus and his enemy, while Dion has doubtless invented his long conversation between the emperor and Livia. Seneca, however, calls the conspirator Lucius, and places the event in the fortieth year of Augustus (a.d. 731), the scene in Gaul: Dion, on the other, gives the names of Gnaeus, and supposes the circumstances to have occurred twenty-six years later, and at Rome. It may be observed that a son of Faustus Sulla must have been at least fifty at this latter date, nor do we know why he should bear the name of Cinna, though an adoption is not impossible.↩
  6. 6.
    See Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," Act IV. Sc. 1.↩
  7. 7.
    An allusion to the title of "Father of his country," bestowed by the Senate upon Augustus. See Merivale, ch, 33.↩
  8. 8.
    This whole comparison, which reads so meaninglessly both in Latin and in English, is borrowed from the eternal declamations of Plutarch and the Greek philosophers about βασιλετς and τύραυυοι. See Plutarch, Lives of Philopoemen and Aratus, Plato, Gorgias and Politicus; Arnold, "Appendix to Thucydides," vol. i., and "Dictionary of Antiquities," s.v.↩
  9. 9.
    De Ira, ii, II↩
  10. 10.
    Vedius Pollio had a villa on the mountain now called Punta di Posilippo, which projects into the sea between Naples and Puteoli, which he left to Augustus, and which was afterwards possessed by the Emperor Trajan. He was a freedman by birth, and remarkable for nothing except his riches and his cruelty. Cf. Dion Cassius, LIV. 23; Pliny, H. N. IX. 23; and Seneca, "On Anger," III. 40. 2.↩
  11. 11.
    The conquered princes who were led through Rome in triumphs were as a rule put to death when the procession was over.↩
  12. 12.
    The "civic" crown of oak-leaves was bestowed on him who had saved the life of a fellow-citizen in war. It was bestowed upon Augustus, and after him upon the other emperors, as preservers of the state.↩
  13. 12.
    The "civic" crown of oak-leaves was bestowed on him who had saved the life of a fellow-citizen in war. It was bestowed upon Augustus, and after him upon the other emperors, as preservers of the state.↩